So Mark, the Costa Rica guy, has lived in St. Louis & St. Charles all his life. He is a fantastic advocate for his cities. He rashly offered to give us a bicycle tour of St. Louis while we were staying at his guest house in St. Charles, and we jumped at the chance.
We don't know this area at all. I was dimly aware that St. Charles existed; I knew about the Arch, but didn't even know it is known as the gateway to the west. And I had no clue how far apart the cities are until I rode in from Illinois yesterday. So I was fairly relieved when Mark announced he'd be by with his car, and that he has a very good, large capacity bike rack on his car. We'd been riding every day for 5 days & were not all that sure we were wise to hop on the bikes again. The 50 or so miles we'd have done had we ridden from the house...well, better to draw a veil over any images that brings to my mind.
So we had an easy drive into the huge and beautiful Forest Park where we got out of the car and started to ride and explore. Even the drive had been pretty special. Mark has invested in houses here over the years, and one was for sale. He had occasion to drop something off there which led to a drive that took us through neighborhoods rather than on the interstates. We saw the for-sale house, which he once lived in; we saw his childhood neighborhood and his own high school. When we began to ride, we saw the museum, the zoo, the conservatory, the tennis and golf facilities and the large lawns, lakes, groves of trees. A beautiful park. Mark's a lot braver than I am. He set off on a slightly gravelly path & I (I had forgotten my bike shoes & was not at all sure that my cheap slip-on sort-soled shoes would take me safely through the day) gritted my teeth and followed. And it was fine. We went on paved paths, roads, gravel paths and across a lawn. I rode it briefly, but soon discovered I could easily walk/run as fast as the guys could ride on the grass.
Soon we were in the city. We cruised through two university campuses; we went by the City Museum (wish I had grandchildren with me to explore that one!); we passed some exclusive looking neighborhoods, and some newly reinvented popular main streets of trendy areas; we wandered through downtown to the Eads Bridge, rode a short distance on the bridge and turned to view the nearby Arch. We rode back and explored the Arch and the area around it (good pictures, hope we will get them in here one of these days). We worked our way back by the ballpark - the Cardinals are in some sort of late season games (play offs?). We stopped at the ballpark for lunch - ice cream for me. We rode along and wandered into a motorcycle museum, really a pretty amazing collection of bikes dating back to the early 20th century. We tried to check out a circus tent, but it was all fenced in. Another campus. Back to the park.
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| Gate guardians at the City Museum |
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| Eads Bridge over the Mississippi River |
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| With Mark on the bridge |
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| The arch |
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| Union Station, now a hotel |
I truly believe that day gave me a better feeling for the city than I could possibly have gotten any other way. Thanks, Mark!
Since we don't have a functioning computer, I am not sure when I will get back to this. I may try to get it done from my phone, but that little keypad is not much fun when I am only trying to get a text message out. We will see. Anyway, we had a rest day today & will head to Columbia, Illinois tomorrow. The next day, Sparta, then a couple of days in Carbondale where Bruce hopes to be able to snag someone from Dell to fix the computer. Fingers crossed.
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